[jarcane]

Thing is, this is a new phenomenon, being accessible free for so very many people.

Federal "free e-File" cut off is a lot lower than what TurboTax is offering this year; I only ever even qualified for federal most years, state still cost, and not long ago even if you qualified for free e-file on income grounds you could still be charged a percentage of your refund if it went over a certain amount (I wound up paying a little bit while I was in college and collecting Obama's student tax credit).

This "Absolute Zero" thing is something they've offered above and beyond the requirement, most likely to encourage more people to connect to the system and make it easier to sell them on doing it again through TT next year when it's not so free anymore.

And I find it a little rich that Common Form is criticizing them on this, considering they only even support filing a 1040EZ, which is a vastly simpler form than even a 1040A, is only available below a certain income cutoff (which cutoff used to line up almost exactly with the "free e-file" rule), and they're charging $20 for them to process a 1-page form you can do by hand in about 20 minutes.